CityWest points to Unsanctioned Crab Fishery as cause of recent fibre breaks affecting service to Haida Gwaii

A team from Highlander Marine
Services recover a crab trap as they
work on the CityWest fibre line
between the North Coast and
Haida Gwaii

CityWest will be asking the Federal Government to step up enforcement activities off the east coast of Haida Gwaii, that after  what the Prince Rupert based communication company calls unsanctioned Crabbing led to extensive service interruptions to service for residents of the Island.

CityWest provided an extensive update on the situation on Wednesday, (providing the photo left) which shows a crab trap retrieved that was on top of the CityWest fibre line at the ocean floor.

The advisory which was posted to the CityWest Social media stream and website also highlights the steps that those fishing the area had gone to cover their tracks.

Investigations have shown that a handful of fishing vessels are deliberately disabling their AIS beacons, making it impossible to track their activities on the water (see image - marine vessel charts indicate an absence of fishing vessels in the vicinity. 

However, crabbing pots are observed directly on top of the Haida Gwaii subsea fiber line and right-of-way). We have been informed, that by law, these vessels are required to keep their AIS systems in operation for at least 30 minutes immediately before departure and for the entire duration of the voyage. 

 These unfortunate events seem to only be caused by a small group of less than a handful of crabbing vessels who continue to ignore the right-of-way and directly affect connectivity for all our customers on Haida Gwaii, causing significant damages to all involved.

Towards safeguarding the fibre connection in the future, CityWest notes of its efforts with MLA Jennifer. Rice and MP Taylor Bachrach to provide additional protection to the vital connection to Haida Gwaii 

We have appealed to the government to step up enforcement activities to protect the line in order to safeguard and improve connectivity to Haida Gwaii. 

We are working diligently with the province of B.C., MLA Rice, MP Bachrach, and the federal government, to upgrade the existing fibre line with an armoured line to protect it from crabbing and fishing activities. We also have a provincially supported CRTC application to build a secondary fibre cable to Haida Gwaii, to serve as a full-service backup link to the existing cable. 

While we work to strengthen the Connected Coast Network, we are also in the process of doubling the capacity of our existing on-island backup link. This will give our customers faster speeds and allow you to use your Stream TV services during a fibre break.

The Full Advisory for Haida Gwaii residents is available below:

As they note, the outage has been an extensive one, dating back to the Christmas holiday period, CityWest anticipates a return to full service shortly.

The post to the CityWest Facebook page has generated a significant amount of commentary, from sympathy for their plight, praise for the work and a range of technical questions and areas of note related to account reimbursement for the outage.

More notes from CityWest can be reviewed from our archive page here.

Items of interest from Haida Gwaii can be explored here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.